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LagosPhoto Biennial: The inaugural edition on incarceration and photography as resistance.

Curated by Azu Nwagbogu, founder of the African Artists’ Foundation, the biennial explores and challenges the forms of confinement imposed on marginalised people.
LagosPhoto Biennial The inaugural edition on incarceration and photography as resistance.

After fifteen years of championing photography as a platform for exchange and critical reflection, the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) announces that LagosPhoto Festival will now adopt a biennial format, on view from October 25 – November 29, 2025.

This transition marks a new phase of growth, creating space for deeper inquiry, broader programming, and expanded impact. Under the theme “Incarceration,” the 2025 edition examines the many visible and invisible forms of confinement—whether imposed by systems or self—that continue to constrain marginalised peoples. The biennial asks how images can expose, challenge, and reimagine carceral structures.

Presented across four venues in Lagos and Ibadan, the program features solo and collaborative projects, institutional exhibitions, screenings, and talks. LagosPhoto’s debut expansion to Ibadan will foreground works engaging the city’s urban and architectural expressions of incarceration.

The rise of Jobalè 2025. From the series les Réenchanteresses. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
The rise of Jobalè, 2025. From the series les Réenchanteresses. Courtesy of the artist and AAFArnold Tagne Fokam
San Quentin State Prison 2004. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
San Quentin State Prison, 2004. Courtesy of the artist and AAFStefan Ruiz
Breathwork 2025. From I Keep My Visions To Myself. Embroidered canvas print on hemp fabric 114 x 140 cm.. Courtesy of...
Breathwork, 2025. From I Keep My Visions To Myself. Embroidered canvas print on hemp fabric, 114 x 140 cm.. Courtesy of the artist and AAFYagazie Emezi

Incarceration often hides in plain sight. The global carceral system rests on institutions and policies that claim reform yet reproduce control. Beyond physical walls, confinement also manifests psychologically, ideologically, and spiritually—subtle forms that shape imagination, desire, and the very idea of freedom. Photography has long been complicit in these systems, used to surveil, categorise, and justify power. Yet it has also served as a weapon of resistance—documenting liberation movements, envisioning sovereignty, and celebrating everyday life. Through these dual histories, photography emerges as both a tool of domination and a medium of emancipation.

For The Love of God 2025. Woven photographic print on canvas 152.4 × 91.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
For The Love of God, 2025. Woven photographic print on canvas, 152.4 × 91.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and AAFAyobami Ogungbe
Tandem 2024. From the GLITZCH Series. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Tandem, 2024. From the GLITZCH Series. Courtesy of the artist and AAFAlia Ali
Stage 2024. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.jpg
Stage, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.jpgTejumola Bayowa
Amadou S. 2016. From the series Passengers 2016. To be displayed as diptych
Amadou S. 2016. From the series Passengers, 2016. To be displayed as diptychCésar Dezfuli
Amadou S. 2021. From the series Passengers 2016. To be displayed as diptych
Amadou S., 2021. From the series Passengers, 2016. To be displayed as diptychCésar Dezfuli

Continuing AAF’s long exploration of photography’s evolving scope, LagosPhoto embraces media beyond the camera’s frame—spanning printed, sculptural, woven, dyed, and performative works that merge image, sound, text, film, installation, and archive. Artists interrogate photography’s role as both an instrument of control and a vehicle for freedom, engaging histories of trauma, displacement, and renewal.

Kayanmata 2025. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Kayanmata, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and AAFFibi Afloe

Ayobami Ogungbe’s woven series evokes the emotional textures of migration, Geremew Tigabu captures spectral landscapes shaped by conflict, while Cesar Dezfuli and Stefan Ruiz trace how portraiture navigates systems of borders and belonging. Yagazie Emezi and Nuotama Bodomo rework ethnographic traditions through indigenous knowledge—Emezi invoking ancestral memory through textiles and ritual, Bodomo reframing film through Afro-indigenous rhythms. Other artists address psychological and ecological rupture, from Shirin Neshat’s haunting meditations on freedom to Sharbendu De’s visions of climate futures.

Untitled. 2019. From the series Cimarrona 20182025. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Untitled. 2019. From the series Cimarrona, 2018-2025. Courtesy of the artist and AAFJohis Alarcon
Untitled from Or Blanc 2023. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Untitled, from Or Blanc, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and AAFMassow Ka
Courtesy of the artist AAF and Tender Photos
Courtesy of the artist, AAF, and Tender PhotosTommie Ominde

As the inaugural biennial edition, LagosPhoto 2025 opens a transformative new chapter—building on fifteen years of experimentation while pursuing fresh dialogues around invention, resistance, and freedom. The new format combines open-call projects with a curated core, emphasizing archival research, intertextual practice, and experimental collections. Selected proposals span Africa, its diaspora, and global affinities, with a strong focus on West Africa’s linguistic and cultural networks.

Untitled 2021. From the series Eye of the Storm 2023. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Untitled, 2021. From the series Eye of the Storm, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and AAFGeremew Tigabu
Good People 2024. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Good People, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and AAFKhanya Zibaya

Projects engage critical questions of ecology, migration, identity, religion, and architecture, and excavate both metaphorical and literal prisons. Exhibitions unfold across historic sites of gathering, resistance, and transformation. In Lagos, the core program activates three venues: African Artists’ Foundation (AAF)—reopening after two years of renovation; Nahous Gallery, newly opened within the historic Federal Palace complex (site of Nigeria’s independence signing and FESTAC ’77); Freedom Park, once a colonial prison, now a civic landmark.

Brother s keeper 2021. From Point of Return. 36 x 26 inches. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Brother's keeper, 2021. From Point of Return. 36 x 26 inches. Courtesy of the artist and AAFOgungbe Ayobami
Untitled 2023. From The Fury series. Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Untitled, 2023. From The Fury series. Courtesy of the artist and AAFShirin Neshat
Courtesy of the artis AAF and Tender Photos
Courtesy of the artis, AAF, and Tender PhotosOllie Walker

In Ibadan, the biennial activates the New Culture Studio designed by Demas Nwoko (1970), exploring urban and architectural dimensions of confinement. Additional satellite venues include Didi Museum and Alliance Française de Lagos.

LagosPhoto 2025 is presented with support from the Ministry of Art and Tourism, National Geographic, Canon, Open Society Foundations, and Nahous Gallery, alongside local collaborators Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency (K-AiR), Madhouse, and Wunika Mukan Gallery.

For more information visit https://www.lagosphotofestival.com/